


scars shine silver in starlight

by karikes



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: (it's mentioned several times but no explicit details), F/M, Romance, Tarsus IV, ummmm i'm not entirely sure how spock got left out of this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12346779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karikes/pseuds/karikes
Summary: Nyota calls him James, and he's not sure if it's to rile him up or to remind him that she gets to see parts of him no one else does. Winona called him Jim, and so did everyone after her, because James was his grandfather. He likes Jim, besides. It fits him.But Nyota calls him James, and he's not angry at all. He can't be, when she shapes the syllables of his name like they belong in his mouth. He feels like he belongs when he is with her; his wound of a childhood fading to a scar with the knowledge that she doesn’t want anything from him that he cannot give.Jim Kirk and Nyota Uhura might be the most unlikely pair in the galaxy. That doesn't mean they love each other any less.





	1. palikau

Nyota calls him James, and he's not sure if it's to rile him up or to remind him that she gets to see parts of him no one else does. Winona called him Jim, and so did everyone after her, because James was his grandfather. He likes Jim, besides. It fits him.

But Nyota calls him James, and he's not angry at all. He can't be, when she shapes the syllables of his name like they belong in his mouth. He feels like he belongs when he is with her; his wound of a childhood fading to a scar with the knowledge that she doesn’t want anything from him that he cannot give.

She never takes from him. 

The entire ship, except for Bones- who  _ knows _ this shit- believes that Jim doesn’t have much choice in their relationship. Everyone knows that Lt. Commander Nyota Uhura takes no shit, and Captain James Tiberius Kirk sometimes talks a lot of it. No one knows exactly how they got together, but they all assume it was her. 

He had been afraid she would take from him. 

Jim had looked into her soft brown eyes for years and been met only with an unfathomable look every time. It hadn’t been her who asked- not because she didn’t want to, she told him later, but because she was waiting for him.

Nyota waits for him even now- in the stillness of the morning, she always wakes first and waits for him to mumble good morning; at meal times, she always manages to get off the bridge first and have their food ready and waiting by the time he makes it to the dining hall; in the quiet spaces they keep to themselves, she never speaks first.

She had waited for him for five long years, through endless light years and long corridors. 

Jim had finally realized, standing on an alien planet in the furthest regions of the Delta Quadrant, his boots mired in yellow mud and waiting for Scotty to beam him up, that he should do something about his crush on Lt. Commander Uhura before he died on some backwater planet that didn’t even have a name.

It was the most stupid and idiotic way Jim ever asked a woman out. He just stood there for twenty minutes- without speaking- while she processed communication logs for the week in the databank. 

She had finally looked up at him, through her long eyelashes, her mouth perfect around her words. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

It had taken him a full minute to peel his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “I’d like it better if you called me Jim,” he had finally managed, his heart pounding in his chest as if he had never done this before. 

Nyota had just waited, her hands hovering over the screen, like she could hear the unspoken words he was trying to form.

“Will you go on a date with me?” Jim had let his breath out all in a rush, his heart thudding in his ears.

“I thought you would never ask.” She smiled and turned back to her work. “I’ll be done at 1600, but I know you won’t be available until 1728, so I’ll wait for you in the officers’ lounge.”

Jim had stood there, dumbstruck. He was still trying to process that fact that Uhura had  _ waited for him to ask _ when she looked up again.

“Nyota.”

“What?”

“You may call me Nyota.”

“Oh.”

“James.” Nyota had said his name like it  _ belonged _ on her tongue, and he had felt something slide and break to pieces then. “From the Latin  _ Iacomus, _ derived from the Greek  _ Ιακωβος,  _ which was a form of the Hebrew  _ Ya'aqov. _ Holder of the heel, supplanter.” Her eyes drilled into Jim’s skull. “Possibly a further derivation of  _ Ya'aqov'el _ \- May God protect.”

Jim didn’t know what to say, so he stayed silent. Nyota reached her hand out suddenly, brushing against his own. He started at the touch, but allowed her hand to remain where it was.

“I’ll call you James.”

Jim hadn’t protested. “Okay.”

They are here, now- together, strong in the roots they have planted deep within each other’s hearts. The stars will turn softly above them, singing their endless melody, and Nyota’s voice will rise to join them as their heads turn gray and their bones begin to weaken.

Jim doesn’t have nightmares anymore, and he shouldn’t believe that it’s been her presence by his side that’s helped him sleep easier, but Bones tells him not to push his luck, so he doesn’t run for the first time in his life.

Nyota had noticed how tense he was the moment she had climbed into bed with him. His hands had slid down her torso, and she had stopped him.

“Is something wrong?” he had asked, his breathing heavy, still trying to process the fact that Nyota Uhura was about to be naked in his bed.

“Not with me,” she had said, and then she had kissed him until he could hardly breathe. “I just like to take my time. Are you in a rush?”

Jim is always in a rush. If he was moving, he couldn’t really think. Bones tried to drag him into therapy a hundred times a week, but if his hands were busy, his brain didn’t have time to run over his endless nightmares. He knows it isn’t the healthiest thing, but he’s been coping for decades at this point. 

His long silence says more than enough for Nyota. She took his hands and kissed them softly. 

“Just lay with me for awhile,” she said, and Jim had known instantly that he was in over his head.

She took her bra off at some point, but they fell asleep in each other’s arms fully clothed. It was another month before she would have sex with him.

“You should slow down,” Nyota had said, for perhaps the hundredth time. “There’s no need to rush something good.”

She doesn’t still hold the same sentiment when he’s buried inside her, but she’s often right. Jim doesn’t mind that she’s right so much of the time. He doesn’t really mind anything except when she makes him take a break.

That’s the only time they fight: over how much rest he gets. That’s when she calls him Jim.

Nyota doesn’t raise her voice, though. She had done it only once, watched the way Jim flinched, and had never done it again.

She makes him put ointment on his scars so they don’t ache as much, but he refuses to get new skin. 

“I don’t want it,” he says night upon endless night. “Getting rid of them would mean I would forget.”

“James,” Nyota says softly, every time. “You know that isn’t true.”

He always turns his head away and she always kisses where his skull meets his spine. 

If Nyota cries for him, Jim never sees her. 

It takes him a year before he says he loves her, although he’s sure she’s been saying it since four months. 

They’re about to beam down to a planet with possible hostiles. Nyota is wearing her  _ I have a job to do _ face and Jim would normally never instigate anything so publicly, especially not while they’re on shift. But he reaches out to grab her hand, engulfing her smaller hand with his.

“I love you,” he says. 

Nyota hides her surprise quickly. They’re not in private and she doesn’t care to have her personal life dragged all over the ship.

“I love you too,” she says softly, and squeezes his hand.

Whatever instinct Jim had that made him blurt that out was right. He gets wounded while on Theta Cromaton VIII. Badly. 

Leonard is widely considered to be the best surgeon in the ‘Fleet. He spends five hours in surgery with Jim. When he finally emerges, his face is drawn.

Nyota is expecting the worst. Jim is always reckless, always reaching to save someone who is already gone. He had leapt to save Ensign Ren a second too late and nearly gotten himself killed in the process. The primitive weapon the Cromatons used had sliced the length of his torso- a long and deep wound that left Nyota expecting her boyfriend to bleed out before they could beam up.

Leonard just nods when Nyota stands, her legs shaky. “He’ll make it.”

She chokes out a sob.

Leonard stands there, a little helpless. He never knows what to do when Nyota is vulnerable around him. He does have the privilege of seeing that side of her often, due to his proximity to Jim.

She pulls him into a hug, still crying. “Len,” she says, her words muffled in his shirt. “I thought I’d lost him and he only said I love you this morning.”

Leonard hugs her, if a little helplessly. He offers comfort to crewmembers all the time. It’s part of his job. Comforting Nyota is different. Maybe it’s because she’s Jim’s girlfriend and maybe it’s because he was afraid he was going to lose Jim too, and maybe it’s just because she’s Nyota- fearless, effervescent, and eloquent Nyota.

Nyota hugs him back, and they stay like that for a little longer than either of them would normally cling to each other. Neither of them want to entertain the idea of a world without Jim’s brash and vibrant soul.

Leonard brings Nyota back to see Jim when they finally separate. Her hand flies to her mouth and fresh tears slip down her cheeks when she sees him.

“James,” she says- like the world has shattered around her shoulders, like she cannot live without him, like there isn’t a star in the universe she would not travel to see him.

Leonard leaves. He knows when he’s not needed.

Jim doesn’t wake up for three hours. Nyota doesn’t move from his side, even though her foot cramps and she eventually falls asleep by his thigh.

She wakes up to his hand on her head, gently stroking her hair. Jim almost never touches her hair, because she said something jokingly about hand oils messing with relaxed hair once. She’s been thinking of going natural lately, even though it would mean more work.

“You can’t do that,” she murmurs.

Jim’s hand lifts from her head immediately. Nyota reaches out and blindly pulls his arm back to her head. 

“I didn’t mean that. I meant almost dying.”

“Oh,” Jim says hoarsely. “I promise I didn’t try.”

“You reckless fool,” she says, raising her head and meeting his eyes. “Not trying and still doing it counts.”

“No crewmember left behind.” Jim shrugs, wincing before his movement is complete. 

“She was already gone,” Nyota says softly. 

“I had to try.” Jim’s eyes are focused somewhere over her shoulder and she knows exactly what he’s thinking of. 

“You don’t have to save them over and over again.”

Jim’s eyes snap to her. “But I do, Nyota. I do.”

“James,” Nyota says, and squeezes his hand. “You aren’t twelve anymore.”

“That’s not the point.” Jim’s voice is going cold like it always does when they talk about Tarsus, and Nyota really doesn’t want to do this now. 

“James,” she repeats. “I thought you were dead. I can’t lose you now. You’ve only just said you’ve loved me. I want to hear it at least a hundred more times. A couple thousand would be ideal.”

Jim cracks a smile. “Let’s start with twice.”


	2. ek'wak

Jim both desperately does and doesn’t want kids. Nyota knows that his fear is that he cannot take care of them like he should or that something will happen to them.

The years pile on top of each other. Week after week passing while they traverse the stars with each other by their side.

He twists to look at his scars in the mirror every morning while she brushes her teeth. Nyota has long since given up trying to get them regen’d, but she wants him to at least allow the idea of healing into his life.

She knows that healing isn’t a strict formula, though, so she lets it slide.

Jim lights up every time he sees a child, and will do anything to make them smile. Nyota waits for him. She will not take.

She meets Winona two years in, a woman she does not think she will ever do more than tolerate. She knows that Winona failed her son and did not do enough to rectify it, if anything at all.

Winona smiles and asks how they met. Jim mumbles something about “She works for me,” and draws his finger through the ring his glass has left on the table. Nyota’s hand slides to his back, firm and sure. She can feel the ridge of his spine and the pattern of scars beneath his shirt, and she isn’t angry anymore. He doesn’t need anger. He needs love.

“We actually met at a bar when he got recruited,” Nyota smiles. She’s going to do her best to smooth this over, and it’s not for Winona. It’s for the love of her life. “I thought he was an asshole for a long time. My opinion has changed since then, as you can see.” She leans her head against Jim’s shoulder.

Jim almost immediately shifts away. Nyota does not make public displays of affection like this. She presses almost warningly into his back, and he allows her head to rest on his shoulder again.

He asks her later why she did it.

“Your mother wants to know that you’re happy, James. She’s got her own issues, and I know it’s not an excuse. I just wanted to show her that you are happy and that I’m going to take care of you. That’s what she wanted, even if it isn’t really true.”

Jim snorts. “We take care of each other. That’s how relationships work.” He drags his hand down his face and rips off his shirt. “I need a shower.”

Nyota makes no offer to join him. She knows when he needs to be alone.

They visit Nyota’s family the fifth summer they have spent together. It’s almost embarrassing that Jim has never met her family. He gets along with them all wonderfully, for which Nyota is endlessly thankful. She is always worried that something will set Jim off.

She doesn’t want other people to see scared or angry Jim. It’s not embarrassment, it’s protection. There isn’t a single thing that she can do though, when her mother drops a dish in the kitchen and Jim goes rigid in his chair.

“James,” Nyota says, soft and measured. “Let’s go outside.”

Jim’s grip on her hand will bruise later, she knows. He stands almost woodenly and drags her outside.

They stand behind a tree together, waiting out Jim’s ragged breathing.

“No pity,” Jim says.

“No pity,” Nyota repeats. “Do you want me to talk to them?”

Jim shakes his head. “This is exactly why we can’t have kids, Nyota. I’m going to fuck them up.”

“James.”

He finally looks at her, his eyes welling over. “You should just call me Jim.”

“James,” she says, her voice steely. “My sister missed Tarsus by two days. My family will have no judgement for you. If you really don’t want to have kids, we won’t. It’s okay.”

Jim lets go of her hand finally. He stares at his trembling fingers. “I don’t want to fall apart in front of them.”

Them could be Nyota’s family or their non-existent children. It doesn’t matter.

“You are the most kind and loving man I know. Your strength carries me through countless days. You are not weak. I love you as if you are a part of me. I am not here to take from you, James. I could not live with myself I did that.”

Jim understands then why she calls him James. It’s not to rile him up or to hold anything over his head. It’s because she sees him as he is, her captain and the love of her life. She doesn’t care about the demons that cling to his back. She cares about _him._ Jim is the brash and swaggering man who takes for himself. James is the man who would give his life in a moment for someone he barely knows.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“There’s nothing to apologize for.” Nyota takes his shaking hands in her own, her brown skin warm and comforting. “Do you want to go back in now?”

“I hope you never stop calling me James,” he blurts out.

“I have no intention of doing so,” she smiles.

Two more years flee from them before Jim comes to her and asks if she’s certain that their children could live with him as a father.

“I’m not,” Nyota laughs. “I’m not certain I’ll be a good parent either. That’s the beauty of it.”

Jim kisses her forehead. “You’re supposed to reassure me.”

“James,” she says, her smile warming his chest. “You’ll be a wonderful father.”

He still doesn’t believe it after she’s pregnant, waking up in a panic to wrap his arms around her swollen stomach and pull her closer. She always allows him to do so, even when she is having a hot flash.

It’s twins, and Jim tells her he has dreams of losing both of them, or being left with one while the other is lost. He still tells Nyota that she can’t let his fear overwhelm him.

She constantly places his hand on her stomach when the girls are kicking. The wonder that crosses his face is worth the discomfort she experiences.

Spock has command of the ship when she gives birth. Jim holds her hand the entire time, her fingers clenched around hers almost as tightly as hers are around his.

Céline and Subira have Jim’s nose. Nyota is up half the night with them, and Jim is right there with her, holding one of them while she nurses the other. He keeps crying when he sees them, touching their dainty features as if they can’t be real.

“You’re a wonderful father, James,” she whispers.

He just smiles at her, his teeth flashing white in the dim light.

The girls grow up on their father’s starship, their small brown legs growing steadier in sleek corridors and tiny hands grabbing at uniforms for comfort. Nyota watches her love carry their daughters through their childhood, his tender hands firm as he braids their hair and kisses their bruises.

Jim tells Leonard that he couldn’t imagine life without his children when the girls are seven. “Nyota was right,” he says, and taps his nose.

Leonard rolls his eyes, but pulls Jim in for a tight hug.

When the girls ask how Jim and Nyota met, Nyota just smiles and says that Daddy took a lot longer to ask Mommy out than he should have. Jim laughs and says, “Mommy is pretty much always right.”

Jim never gets rid of his scars, and Nyota never does a thing except kiss them. There aren’t any tears in her eyes anymore.

Subira becomes a doctor and gets a job in Beijing. Céline joins Starfleet, after her initial plan to be an architect. Both her parents are admirals then, and sign her commission on the _USS Brighton._

They retire to Risa, where their daughters visit them for Rosh Hashanah. Jim still cradles Nyota like it’s the first moment he had a chance to, even though their skin is thinner and their posture more stooped.

Their love story was spun in the stars, and sealed with tender hands. That’s what Nyota likes to say, anyways, with her gift for words. Jim would say only that she’s the first person besides Bones who never took from him.

Both of them are right, but it doesn’t matter what other people see or hear. All that matters is the home they have made in each other’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first two paragraphs of this at the beginning of May...... Anyways, it's finished. I hope you liked it!! Please feel free to leave me a comment below or come visit me on tumblr [here](https://uhurasnyota.tumblr.com/).


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